30 Weeks

Today I am 30 weeks pregnant! I would say I can't believe that I'm this far but it sort of feels like I've been pregnant forever. Not in a bad way, it is just all that I have thought and talked about definitely for the last 30 weeks but really for the last 3 years. I feel really good though, just BIG! I know that I'm going to get a lot bigger but the last few weeks have really solidified the fact that I am very pregnant. People don't hesitate anymore to just assume I'm pregnant and ask when I'm due. I'm no smaller in the mornings than I am at night. There aren't too many outfits where I can hide the belly (not that I want to!). Last weekend, I was getting ready for bed and accidentally kicked the corner of the wall on the bathroom. I do that sort of thing all the time because I'm clumsy and even at my smallest, I underestimate how close I am to running into things. Pregnancy has not helped. The next day, my toe hurt so bad that I thought I may have broken it. I told Parker and he asked me if it looked purple or swollen. I said, "I don't know, I can barely see my feet anymore!" Its also funny how many simple things I simply can't do anymore because of the size of my belly. Putting on and taking off shoes and socks has become quite difficult. I also have a hard time sitting with my legs crossed, unless I'm leaned back. I can sit on the ground with my legs straight out, nor can I sit straight up from a laying position without rolling sideways and pushing myself up. I don't miss any of this though...I'm having too much fun.

Mary Elizabeth now moves constantly. She wakes up as soon as I do in the morning and wiggles all over the place. I love to just lay in the bed and feel her moving around and waking up. At night, she rolls, twists, kicks and punches all over the place. There's always at least one or two hands on my belly, between me, Parker and Collette. I know she can feel when there are hands on my belly. She used to shy away from hands but I think she's gotten used to it now and moves just as much. Sometimes I'll push and poke a little and instead of moving away from me, she'll push and poke right back. I love it so much, it feels like we're playing, like we're reacting to each other already.

Speaking of reacting, she does a lot more of that now too! I know she knows her daddy because she moves when he's around. When he gets home from work, he always comes straight over to me and kisses me, touches my belly and says hi to Mary Elizabeth. She always moves. She also loves the shower. I don't know if its the feel of the water, the warmth or the sound but when I take a shower, she always presses herself against my belly like she's trying to get closer to the water. If I move so the water hits me in a different spot, she'll move to it. The other day I was in the shower and she was enjoying it as usual. Parker turned on the kitchen water and the shower suddenly turned freezing cold. I could feel her jump and move away from it quickly! It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world but it was cool to feel her reaction.

I feel pretty good though. My sciatica felt better today than it has in a while. I also got the best night's sleep last night that I've had in weeks! Hopefully I'm getting used to her (and my) bigger size! From what I read, she's a little over 3 pounds and about 17 inches long. What's amazing to me is that my sweet niece and nephew, Gracie and Bailey, were born at 30 weeks. They are now 17 months and you would never know they were premies! I love knowing that if she were born now, she would be in as good shape as the twins were. However, as my sister-in-law Beth reminds me often, we definitely don't want her to come now and have to stay in the NICU until March. I remember how hard it was for Beth to leave her babies every night and go home without them and I do not want to experience that. It is just amazing to me that because the twins were born at this time, I now know what she looks like at this time. I've been looking back at Beth's Facebook pictures of the babies and it is amazing to see that at 30 weeks, they look like babies! Here's a picture of the first time I got to hold Gracie. It was August 29 so she was only 4 weeks old. Its crazy to think this is what Mary Elizabeth will look like in 4 weeks still in my belly!

We've been making plans for baby showers and I'm so excited! We have 3 within about a week and half and they are right around the corner. I can't wait to celebrate her with our friends and family! I'm also so excited to get everything done in the nursery and really feel ready to bring her home. (As soon as the nursery is done, I'll have before and after pictures.) This past weekend, Collette threw a little baby party for me with the cheerleaders. I let her do all the silly baby shower games, like guess the baby food and measure my belly with a ribbon. We also had them write down advice for me and Parker. It was so funny to see the advice that middle school and high school students came up with! Things like spoil her, give her gifts for no reason, let her do whatever she wants, and my favorite, don't drop her. She also got a few little gifts, even though we told them not to bring gifts. The best part of the party though was 2 groups of girls came up with "labor and delivery cheers," meant to help me "push her out." I laughed so hard I was crying! It was awesome.

I know this post is long but there was one more thing I wanted to share. Parker is so in love with his daughter already, it absolutely melts my heart. The other day, his sister Kara stopped by his office and was asking how everything was going with me and the baby. He told her how excited he was to meet her and she asked what he was most excited about. She pointed out how it would be a lot of sleepless nights, stinky diapers and all in all, just a lot of work so she wanted to understand what he was most looking forward to. He thought about it for a second and said, "Just holding her." I love that. I told him that I wanted him to know that he could hold her as much as he wanted and that he never needed to feel like he had to ask. He's already so in love with her, I can't wait to see his reaction to meeting her and getting to know her. Watching him fall in love with her makes me fall more and more in love with him. I hope she always knows how much her daddy loves her.

30 Weeks

Blizzard 2011!